Are you new to content writing, or have you been tasked with writing a blog and found yourself looking for content writing tips? If so, you’ve come to the (write?) right place.
As a full-time content writer, I’ve found that the little things can often mean the difference between a blog’s success or failure. For example, following some simple guidelines has improved my writing over time, in addition to helping me create cleaner, more direct pieces of content that get results.
Read on for my favorite content writing tips and tricks.
Table of Contents
See what I did there? I bet you didn’t even notice.
Keep the focus of your articles on point. If you’re writing an article entitled “10 Killer Counted Cross-Stitch Tips,” get to the tips immediately after your opening paragraph(s), formatted as H2s. As an internet citizen, I see countless sites guilty of adding superfluous content (“What is Content?”) before getting to the search intent.
Remember who your audience is. Where are they in the funnel? Could you create another piece of introductory content and link to it rather than giving your target audience more than they need?
Check out How to Write Relevant Content for more writing tips!
Heading tags are great for formatting, right? Yes, but … no. Search engines look to heading tags to categorize and organize information, not to give you the correct font size (even though they often do that, too).
Creating a structured hierarchy of H2s and H3s on your page gives search engines an easy way to scan your content and determine that page’s rightful position in search results.
Speaking of heading tags, headings should be clearly understood by the reader so they can find what they’re looking for quickly. As much as you’d like to believe that readers are savoring every well-chosen word, they’re really just scanning for the information they need to solve their problem.
Since I’m writing as my goofy self in this article, I took some liberties with equally goofy headings. However, I attempted to make them understandable and relevant to their section’s content.
Spell check, that is. Grammar check too. I hate to break this to you, but your own eyes aren’t that trustworthy, especially after you’ve spent hours writing your article.
As Grammarly says, “To err is human; to correct, divine.” At Human, we don’t publish anything until at least two pairs of eyes have seen the work: the content writer (who uses post-writing assessment tools) and another content team member who checks the writer’s work. We just can’t get enough of ourselves.
A few tidbits on numbers and such:
Since I’ve already mentioned one of my true loves, Grammarly, I’ll also clue you in to a close runner-up for my affections: Semrush.
I use Semrush every day – I couldn’t live without it. Their SEO Content Template lets me know what competitors are ranking for a particular search term and how long my ideal article length should be.
Domain Overview shows me a site’s Domain Authority score and top organic keywords when I’m optimizing an existing blog. Plus, you can use their Position Tracking tool to evaluate keywords' positive and negative impacts.
We’re lucky to be able to use the paid version of Semrush here at Human. However, the free version enables you to use their Keyword Magic Tool and perform ten searches a day in their Domain Analytics and Keyword Analytics databases.
Pro Tip: Don’t go overboard with tools. Although I’m only spotlighting two in this article, there are PLENTY of other good ones, like Moz and Google Keyword Planner. Procrastinators, take heed! Try a few out, use what you like, and discard the rest – or risk spending your day researching instead of actually writing.
Can you have more than one keyword in a blog? Sure, but make sure they are closely related. An article’s focus should be relatively narrow for maximum impact (and SEO value). Add long tail and semantic versions of keywords to add variety, but keep topics to the point.
Read SEO for Bloggers: How to Optimize Your Blog Site For Google
Keyword research can go sideways if you don’t understand user intent. User intent, or search intent, attempts to pinpoint what you want to find when typing keywords into a search engine. Understanding what terms most closely match user intent is essential to impactful CRO or SEO efforts.
We’ve all had the experience of Googling something and refining it a few times to get the answer we’re looking for. For example, if you’re researching how to start your own business, searching “donut shop” will likely lead you to donut shops in your area (I’ll take a glazed old-fashioned, please); it probably won’t pull up information on how to open one.
When doing keyword research, assess the initial search results a keyword yields. This will help you evaluate user intent. Then, refine your search to include more accurate long-tail keywords that may help lead a potential customer (or fangirl) to your site.
While it’s tempting to smother your copy with keywords like gravy on mashed potatoes, they should be sprinkled lightly, like salt. Ok, enough with the food analogies.
Keywords are for search engines, not readers. So use the Goldilocks Rule for keyword usage: not too few, not too many, just enough. How many is enough, exactly? Well, it depends. But here are a couple of factors to consider:
If traffic on a formerly popular blog is starting to dip, you need to understand why. Do your stats need updating? Have competitors recently published articles that are better than yours? Would a keyword shift breathe life into your blog?
At Human, we optimize existing website content for our clients regularly. Whether it’s a blog the client wrote that needs some wordsmithing or reorganization or a blog we wrote that’s starting to show its age, optimizing blogs should definitely be on your radar.
Have you ever seen a blog that looked like one solid block of text? How long did it take you to close that tab?
Remember, no one likes struggling to read. Give readers’ eyes plenty of white space while reading your blog. I’m not fond of blogs that are a succession of single lines that keep you scrolling endlessly.
Limiting sentences to under 30-35 words and using shorter paragraphs (around five sentences, depending on your topic’s complexity) makes reading more enjoyable, increasing engagement.
If your prose sounds stiff and robotic, try using transitional phrases to humanize your writing and establish connections between ideas, like:
Grammarly has an excellent resource for transition words if you want to go deeper.
We’re all drowning in content.
Remember, writing great blog posts isn’t like writing a novel. When we want information, we want to find what we need quickly to go on with our lives. Creating narrow, well-organized, and concisely written topics holds readers’ attention, keeping them interested.
If you do a lot of writing, the last thing you may want to do is read other people’s writing. However, one of the best ways to improve your writing skills away from your desk is to read. Fiction, non-fiction – it doesn’t matter.
Reading enriches your mind, expands your knowledge and often inspires you unexpectedly. Some of my favorite classic resources for writers include:
Bottom line: Producing good, SEO-friendly content is never a one-and-done proposition. If you need help with SEO, content strategy or optimizing existing content, Human’s Content Marketing Services could be just what you’re looking for.
Reach out to us today – we love to help!